REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS 82, 045102 (2011)

High voltage pulser with a fast fall-time for plasma immersion ion
implantation
Zongtao Zhu,1 Chunzhi Gong,1 Xiubo Tian,1,a) Shiqin Yang,1 Ricky K. Y. Fu,2 and
Paul K. Chu2
1
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Welding Production and Technology, School of Materials Science
and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
2
Department of Physics and Materials Science, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue,
Kowloon, Hong Kong
(Received 22 February 2011; accepted 17 March 2011; published online 6 April 2011)
A novel high voltage (HV) modulator that offers a short fall time to minimize sputtering effects
and allow more precise control of the incident ion fluence in plasma immersion ion implantation is
described. The use of 36 insulated-gate bipolar transistors in the 30 kV hard-tube pulser reduces the
HV fall time to 3.5 s, compared to a fall time of 80 s if a pull-down resister is used. The voltage
balance is achieved by a voltage-balancing resistor, clamped capacitance, and the synchronization of
drive signals. Compared to the traditional method employing a pull-down resister or an additional
hard tube, our design consumes less power and is more economical and reliable. 2011 American
Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3575320]

I. INTRODUCTION
In plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII),1, 2 ions gen-
erated by external gas or metal plasma sources3 are implanted
into the samples immersed in the plasma when negative high
voltage pulses are applied to the sample stage. The process
circumvents the line-of-sight restriction that plagues conven-
tional beam-line ion implantation and is often utilized to treat
specimens with a complex shape.4, 5 The high voltage mod-
ulator is thus an important piece of hardware in PIII.6, 7 A
modulator that can produce high voltage pulses with a rectan-
gular shape is preferred for conformal ion implantation into a
three-dimensional sample around which a transient ion sheath
is generated. Nevertheless, the practical output voltage wave-
form usually contains a short rise time of about 0.52 s and
a long fall time of several tens of microseconds due to the
capacitance effect of the cables, circuit elements, and plasma
load. This leads to detrimental sputtering effect due to lower
implantation energy at the end of the voltage pulse. It has
been reported that 96% of the low-energy ions are introduced
during the rise-time and fall-time periods.8 The rise time de-
pends mainly on the circuit design but the fall time is affected
by multiple variables such as the external plasma load, ca-
ble length, and so on.9, 10 It is generally difficult to change
the plasma load which is dictated by the processing param-
eters. The fall time may be shortened by using a pull-down
resistor parallel to the plasma load. However, the large energy
consumption by the pull-down resistor cannot be ignored, es-
pecially for high bias voltages and long duty cycles.11 An-
other technique is to add a high voltage switch such as a tri-
ode or tetrode. This may effectively discharge the plasma-load
capacitance to ground after the high voltage pulse is turned
off.12, 13 However, addition of the second high voltage switch
increases the cost of the pulse generator and requires more
complex control circuits.
In this paper, we describe a novel circuitry to shorten the
fall time using insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBT) in
series as a tail reducing switch inspired by IGBT-based PIII
modulator.14 The design combines hard tubes with IGBTs to
pare costs and to reduce technical difficulty while increasing
flexibility and reliability. A tetrode is utilized to switch the
high voltage, and after the tetrode is turned off, the IGBTs
connected in series are turned on synchronously to rapidly
discharge the equivalent capacitance. This leads to a short fall
time and low energy consumption compared to the use of a
pull-down resistor. This proposed tail reducing switch which
is cheaper than a hard tube switch can be retrofitted to upgrade
an existing high voltage pulser.
II. HIGH VOLTAGE MODULATOR
A. Main power circuit
The high voltage is modulated by a tetrode using a
typical circuit as shown in Fig. 1(a).7, 15 A variable dc high
voltage power supply charges energy storage capacitor C1
through resistor R1 and diode D1 . The tetrode SW1 is utilized
as the main switch to discharge capacitor C1 through resistor
R2 , inductor L1 , and the load. This is equivalent to a parallel
connection of capacitor CL and resistor RL . CC is the sum
of the internal and the cable capacitances. To obtain a short
fall time, IGBTs connected in series, SW2 , are used as a tail
reducing switch. When the switch SW1 is turned off, switch
SW2 will be triggered on to discharge the capacitors CC and
CR through resistor Rp and inductor L2 used to limit the peak
discharge current.

B. IGBT connection in series

a) Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail: Series connection of devices such as IGBTs is widely
xiubotian@163.com. Tel./Fax: 86-451-86418791. used in circuits with a output voltage much larger than their

0034-6748/2011/82(4)/045102/4/$30.00 82, 045102-1 2011 American Institute of Physics

045102-2 Zhu et al. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 82, 045102 (2011)

FIG. 2. (Color online) PSPICE simulation of the collectoremitter voltage

(VCE ) of IGBTs for different delay time of drive signals and snubber capaci-
tances of 3, 4.7, 7.8, and 10 nF.

IGBTs connected in series are triggered on. Owing to the

asynchronous drive signals, the voltages between the collec-
tor and emitter of the IGBTs may increase rapidly and exceed
the safety limit of the IGBTs themselves. The parallel snub-
FIG. 1. Schematic diagram of the HV pulser with the tail reducing switch:
(a) main circuit and (b) IGBTs in series. ber capacitors may decrease the rising rate of VCE and clamp
it below 1200 V when the time delay is not too long. For ex-
blocking capabilities.16, 17 In our circuit, as shown in Fig. 1(b), ample, VCE of the IGBTs for a time delay of 300 ns is only
the series connection of IGBTs (S1 Sn ) is only used as a high 1080 V with a snubber capacitance of 3 nF. If the time delay
voltage switch [SW2 in Fig. 1(a)] to release the charge re- becomes longer, big snubber capacitors are needed to further
tained in the equivalent capacitance. The biggest difficulty clamp down VCE . However, it may increase the rise time of
for direct connection of IGBTs in series is unequal voltage the HV pulse as well as the energy consumption especially
sharing across the devices due to the different time delay of in the high frequency operation modes. Practically, asynchro-
the driving circuit or parameter deviations among the dif- nization of the drive signal should be less than 200 ns to
ferent devices.18 The isolated driving signals are delivered ensure the IGBT group to work reliably.
by a transformer composed of one primary coil (T0 ) and n Figure 3 depicts the photograph of the IGBTs connected
secondary coils (T1 Tn ) to minimize the delay time of the in series to reduce the voltage tail of high voltage pulses up to
driving circuit. The voltage balancing during the blocking 30 kV. The switch consists of 36 IGBTs rated at 1200 V and
mode (IGBT off state) is achieved using balancing resistors 25 A. The isolated drive signals of each IGBT are delivered
(Rb1 Rbn ) and snubber capacitors (Cb1 Cbn ) parallel to the by a transformer with one primary coil and 36 secondary
IGBTs. Additionally, a transient voltage suppressor (TVS1
TVS2 ) is used to protect each IGBT for its fast response to
overvoltage.
The PSPICE software is utilized to investigate the voltage
balance across the IGBTs for different time delay in the drive
signal in order to optimize the circuit. Ten kilovolt is used in
the simulation and thus ten IGBTs with the ratings of 1200 V
are connected. Table I summarizes the parameters of the main
components.
Figure 2 displays the peak collectoremitter voltages
(VCE ) of the IGBTs for different snubber capacitances. When
the high voltage (HV) switch SW1 is switched off, the

TABLE I. Values of the main components in the simulation circuit.

Components Symbol Values Unit

Load capacitance CL 4.5 nF

Parasitic capacitance CC 0.5 nF
Load resistance RL 100 k
Snubber capacitances Cb1 , Cb2 , . . . , Cb10 3/4.7/7.8/10 nF
Balancing resistor Rb1 , Rb2 , . . . , Rb10 600 k
Current-limited resistor Rp 100 
Current-limited resistor L2 100 H
FIG. 3. (Color online) Photograph of the IGBTs connected in series.
045102-3 Zhu et al.
FIG. 4. Drive signal of three IGBTs: (a) during a single pulse; (b) time-axis
magnified during the initial process.
coils. The precise drive-signal synchronization of each IGBT
is crucial to protecting the switch from overvoltage break-
down. The primary coil consists of six parallel coils arrayed
along the toroids core to decrease the distance difference
along the magnetic circuits, which determine the time delay
in each drive signal.
Figure 4 shows three drive signals of all the IGBTs
detected by the Tektronix TDS1012B-SC oscilloscope and
P2220 voltage probe. The pulse width of each drive signal
is 25 s and there is almost no difference in these three sig-
nals during the single pulse period as shown in Fig. 4(a).
Figure 4(b) shows the drive signals with the time axis magni-
fied as the IGBTs are turned on. The time delay among these
three drive signals is about 60 ns and much lower than the
value of 200 ns adopted by the simulation above. The other
33 drive signals also exhibit a similar behavior (not displayed
here). It is helpful to minimize the energy consumption and
detrimental effect on the rise time of the HV pulses from the
snubber circuits.19 In our circuits, the snubber capacitance of
each IGBT is 7.8 nF, leading to an energy consumption of
about 0.0975 J for a single pulse of 30 kV. The energy con-
sumed by the balancing resistors is very small because of the
large resistor (600 k).
The output voltage on the real resistor load of 24 k is
measured by a capacitor divider (1:10 000). Figure 5 displays
the pulsed high voltage (30 kV) for different discharging re-
sistor Rp . Without the tail reducing circuit, the fall time of
FIG. 5. (Color online) Output pulse voltage on the resistor load of 24 k
with different discharging resistor Rp .
Rev. Sci. Instrum. 82, 045102 (2011)
the HV pulse is about 80 s. In contrast, the IGBTs decrease
substantially the fall time, which is only about 3.5 s if a
discharging resistor of 750  is used. More importantly, the
snubber capacitances in the tail-biter have very slight influ-
ence on the rise time of the HV pulse.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
To demonstrate the performance of the HV modulator
consisting of the tail reducing IGBT component, PIII ex-
periments were performed. Figure 6 shows the schematic of
the experimental apparatus. The plasma was generated by a
direct-current magnetron sputtering system with an Al target
50 mm in diameter. The working gas was argon, flow rate
was 11 sccm, and the working pressure was 0.5 Pa. The volt-
age applied to the magnetron target was about 410 V and the
current was 0.41 A.
Figure 7(a) displays the waveforms of the HV pulses with
various pulse widths with a pull-down resistor of 24 k. On
account of to the equivalent capacitance, the fall time of the
pulse is up to 80 s, which is nine times longer than the pulse
plateau of 8 s. This leads to substantial sputtering of the
sample. Moreover, much power is wasted by the pull-down re-
sistor. For example, as reported in the literature,20 the average
implantation current is 0.2 A for 12 kV pulses. The equivalent
impendance of the plasma load calculated by Ohms law is
60 k and hence, nearly 71% of the energy of the power sup-
ply is consumed by the 24 k pull-down resistor. In contrast,
there is no energy consumption in our new system and the fall
time of the HV pulse is shortened to 45 s, as is shown in
Fig. 7(b). Actually, the fall time can be shrunk even more by
increasing the current rate of the IGBTs. Because of the weak
dependence of the fall time on the plasma load, the incident
ion fluence can be more precisely controlled while sputtering
arising from low-energy ions can be significantly reduced.
Rapid recovery of the plasma sheath is preferred espe-
cially in high-frequency PIII processes. In order to exam-
ine the behavior of the plasma sheath, a long probe21 is
placed 5 mm from the sample holder. To obtain better sig-
nals, a larger probe consisting of a copper stick 6 mm in
diameter and 70 mm long is employed. The measurement
FIG. 6. Schematic of experimental apparatus.
045102-4 Zhu et al.
FIG. 7. Output waveforms of the HV pulser with different pulse widths on
plasma load: (a) with pull-down resistor of 24 k; (b) with tail reducing
circuit.
voltage Vm applied to the probe is +5 V and the mea-
surement resistor Rm is 100 . The initial current flow-
ing through the probe is about 3040 mA without turn-
ing on the negative high voltage. As soon as the HV pulse
(10 kV with pulse width of 20 s) is applied to the sub-
strate holder, the plasma sheath forms and propagates quickly.
The current diminishes rapidly to zero because there are no
electrons in the sheath. If the IGBT tail reducing circuit is
not used, the plasma sheath does not recover fully until after
200 s even though the HV pulse (10 s) has ended much
sooner as shown in Fig. 8(a). In contrast, when the IGBTs
are used, the plasma sheath collapses rapidly as indicated by
the quick increase in the current collected by the probes as
demonstrated by Fig. 8(b). A current surge is also observed
on the probe and it may be due to a large number of electrons
moving from the plasma to the rapidly collapsing sheath. The
small recovery time of the plasma sheath enables more con-
formal PIII processes at high frequencies and/or short pulse
widths.22
FIG. 8. (Color online) Recovery characteristics of plasma sheath during a
single pulse: (a) without fall time control and (b) with fall time control.
Rev. Sci. Instrum. 82, 045102 (2011)
IV. CONCLUSION
A high voltage PIII pulser combining hard tubes and
IGBTs is described. A small fall time can be achieved from
the HV pulses using 36 IGBTs connected in series to dis-
charge the equivalent capacitance arising from the cable and
plasma load. The PSPICE simulation demonstrates that volt-
age balancing can be accomplished via resistors and snubber
circuits in spite of asynchronous 200 ns drive signals. Using
36 IGBTs with relatively low ratings, the long tail of the HV
pulse (30 kV) can be effectively clipped. The rise time of the
HV pulse is not affected by the IGBT setup whereas the fall
time can be reduced to 45 s irrespective of the plasma load
and it may be further shortened. The novel modulator enables
precise control of the ion fluence, while sputtering can be sig-
nificantly mitigated. Compared to the traditional use of a pull-
down resistor or an additional hard tube, our design is less
energy consuming and more economical and reliable.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was financially supported by Natural Science
Foundation of China (Nos. 50773015 and 10775036), Pro-
gram for New Century Excellent Talents in University in
China, and Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) Cen-
tral Allocation Equipment (Grant No. CityU 1/06C).
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